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“ The proposal from the Trump administration, should it be finalized in the coming months, would deliver a victory to businesses and industries that want to scale back the Clean Water Act of 1972, which Congress passed to protect all “waters of the United States.”

The beneficiaries could be real estate developers eager to build on shorelines, farmers with fields that run along waterways and manufacturers who make petrochemicals in vast factories set on tidal marshes.

“Today’s proposal is going to be met with a lot of relief” from those businesses and landowners, Lee Zeldin, the E.P.A. administrator said. But what about the rest of the country?

My colleague Maxine Joselow, a climate policy reporter, covered the announcement of the proposal, which could exclude from federal protection wetlands that sit beside what are known as “intermittent” or “ephemeral” streams. Those are the ones that sit dry for most of the year but fill up after rainfall or snowmelt, providing more than half of the water flowing through most river systems used in our drinking water.

“Wetlands are sort of the unsung heroes of the planet because they store carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas that contributes to climate change,” Maxine told me. “They also provide food, shelter and breeding grounds for a variety of species, including endangered species like the Florida panther and the whooping crane.” They not only provide drinking water, but they also protect against flooding by absorbing tidal surges during storms.

The environmentalist response
Environmentalists are ripping mad. The proposal could affect up to 55 million acres of wetlands — roughly the area of Utah.

The disagreement comes down to a debate over what constitutes “waters of the United States,” which Maxine told me is known by water policy nerds as WOTUS. The Obama administration widened the scope of the Clean Water Act to protect the headwaters of rivers and smaller streams that aren’t always full of water. (A farmers’ advocacy group ran an ad campaign featuring rubber ducks to protest the E.P.A.’s definition: “If you can’t #FloatUS, it’s not a WOTUS,” the ads declared.) In Trump’s first term, the E.P.A. repealed that rule. Then, a Supreme Court ruling in 2023 made it hard again for Democratic administrations to strengthen the protections.

The case was Sackett v. E.P.A. The Sacketts were an Idaho couple who wanted to build a house near what the E.P.A. said were federally protected wetlands. The Supreme Court ruling said the wetlands were not, in fact, federally protected.

And now many more acres of waterways may not be either. The National Association of Home Builders cheered the possibility, Maxine said. The group’s chairman told her the administration’s proposal would help in “reducing regulatory red tape, cutting permitting costs and lowering the cost of doing business in communities across the country.”

Beyond wetlands
Trump has repeatedly said he wants “clean air and clean water.” But several decisions are expected to have the opposite effect, Maxine said.

Last month, the government said it would open the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska to oil and gas drilling. And just last week the administration announced that drilling would also be allowed in a pristine, remote stretch of tundra and wetlands in the northern part of the state that is among the Arctic’s most important wildlife habitats.

Why? Officials say that environmental concerns should not necessarily supersede the needs of the nation’s economy. The decision to drill in Alaska, for instance, would “unlock Alaska’s energy potential, create jobs for North Slope communities and strengthen American energy security,” according to Doug Burgum, the secretary of the interior.”